RETRO REVIEW: Star Trek (2009)

Theatrical Release Poster – Paramount Pictures, et al.

The following is a retro review of Star Trek, a J. J. Abrams film.

I wasn’t a fan of Star Trek before 2009. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. J. J. Abrams made me a Star Trek fan. I’ve since gone back and seen some of the shows, but this film is still what made me a fan, and still my favorite thing in the franchise. 2009’s Star Trek is fast-paced fun. It’s exhilarating. It looks amazing, and it is one of the best science fiction action films I’ve seen.

The 2009 Star Trek reboot tells the story of how Spock (played by Zachary Quinto) and James T. Kirk (played by Chris Pine) became friends in an alternate reality. Spock is an emotional man that has been looked down upon by the Vulcan-species throughout his entire life due to his human mother. Kirk is an arrogant, but smart, man who grew up without a father, after his father, George Kirk (played by Chris Hemsworth), went down with the USS Kelvin.

Spock and Kirk finally meet at the Starfleet Academy, and are soon both on board the USS Enterprise where Christopher Pike is the captain. When they learn more about a Vulcan-distress call, Kirk realizes that the Romulan ship that attacked the USS Kelvin was back.

One of my favorite things about the Star Trek-reboot is that it doesn’t ignore the original timeline. That was really important to me when I first watched it. Leonard Nimoy is Spock, and to have him in this film to explain how the timelines are connected was really smart.

But the new cast really works as well. I wasn’t sure that Quinto would work as Spock, but he really does. Chris Pine is a great Kirk. I like Zoe Saldana’s Uhura, and I absolutely love John Cho as Sulu and Anton Yelchin as Chekov. I thought Bruce Greenwood did a great job as Pike, but Eric Bana’s Captain Nero didn’t do much for me.

My biggest problem with this film is the use of lens flares. J. J. Abrams loves to add lens flares, but in his Star Trek-films they are extremely noticeable and pretty annoying. I’m sure there are some people that find them unbearable, and that is simply not okay.

J. J. Abrams 2009 is a great science fiction action film that brought a lot of new fans to the franchise. I remember how some critics were pointing out that Star Trek-director J. J. Abrams, who is a huge Star Wars-fan, had made a Star Trek film that felt more like a Star Wars-film. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing, seeing as the reboot revitalized the franchise.